


Follow Me Home

by morifiinwe



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (just the once though), Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mentions of Blood, Psychological Distress, Swearing, torture mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 15:16:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morifiinwe/pseuds/morifiinwe
Summary: Gondolin is not so hidden if you know where, or who, to watch.





	Follow Me Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HerAwesomeShinyness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerAwesomeShinyness/gifts).



> This was inspired by, and written for, HerAwesomeShinyness, who had a wonderful idea, and let me make a fic out of it. Go check her out, she's really cool.  
> This was beta read by the lovely elvntari, who you should also go and check out, especially The Curious Case of the Paternity of Ereinion Gil-galad, which I'm a little bit obsessed with.

Maeglin was not a fool. Young, perhaps, but not a fool.

The dark had been the worst part of all of it, but his insistence to himself that he would not fall so easily had held his resolve. He had compelled himself to remember the scrape of stone against his elbows. When they had taken him out of the dark and began the questions, Maeglin sought other memories. The blood against his mother’s white dress. The look in his father’s eyes. The truth of fear.

He would not be such a fool.

Maeglin expected they would hurt him, scare him, and then drag the truth out of him. The memories were his shield against it. He had not expected promises.

“I can make you great,” Morgoth had told him, “I can fulfil all your desires. I can give you anything in Gondolin that you want.”

Maeglin’s thoughts flickered to Idril. Bright and beautiful, though never when she looked at him. If there was anything in Gondolin that he wanted, it was her.

Blood on his hands, he reminded himself. Blood on his hands that should of been his. The truth of fear. The truth of  _ love _ . If there was anything in Gondolin he wanted, it was his mother.

“No, you can’t.”

“Be reasonable. Gondolin will not stand forever. If you join with me now, you will survive it. You will rise above its ashes.”

“Fuck off.”

Morgoth had blinked. It was the only indicator of surprise, but Maeglin took courage from it. If he could surprise him, he could survive him. Would his mother be proud? Maeglin hoped so.

“It’s sweet; that you care so much about Gondolin. Do they care so much about you, I wonder? No one is searching for you. None would risk so much.”

Maeglin had suppressed his urge to laugh at this. While no one was supposed to leave Gondolin, he had made something of a habit of it. Days — and even weeks — spent out in the mountains, looking for metals and rocks; everyone was used to it. Perhaps they didn’t all approve, but it didn’t surprise them anymore.  _ Of course  _ no one was searching for him.

“When you go back, they won’t care about you. And when that happens, you know where to find me, even if I don’t know where to find you,” Morgoth had Maeglin’s head in his grasp by that point, tilting it upwards to make him meet his gaze, “How’s that for a deal?”

“I like the when.”

“I thought you would.”

Morgoth’s grip on his head had grown tighter and tighter. Maeglin had been just about to cry out when he released his hold. The cuffs on Maeglin’s wrists had fallen off on to the floor, leaving him with the startling realisation that he had been set free.

“Run home, little elf, and see how they greet you.”

Maeglin had run.

  
* * * * *

  
Looking back, it seemed almost like Morgoth had wanted him to reach Gondolin with as little trouble as possible. Despite being undefended and completely vulnerable, he travelled without incident. The eyes of invisible watchers often prickled across his back, but he drowned the thoughts of being followed in a strange pool of calm that had welled up in his mind.

The only things he couldn’t drown were the dreams.

The memories he had used to shield himself turned against him again. He dreamed time and time over of his mother’s death. It was almost as though Lórien was trying to warn him of something. Maeglin dismissed that thought. So long as he got back to Gondolin, everything would be fine.

It didn’t stop them from making every part of his body shake. It didn’t stop him from staying awake to try and avoid them.

Sometimes he dreamed that he was still trapped in the dark —t hat all the terrible things he’d feared Morgoth would do to him had come true. Those were harder to recover from, if easier to forget.

A rhythm set itself up. Maeglin travelled only by day, protected by what light from the sun could make it down to him. When night came and the moon rose, he fended off sleep for as long as he had the control to. Then, he suffered through the dreams. Some nights, he got so little sleep he was convinced he was beginning to hallucinate.

The first time was easily dismissed. Out of the corner of his eye, Maeglin saw what looked like an orc scout. In the time it took for him to blink and turn his head, it had disappeared. Just a tired mind, he reasoned. There was no cause for alarm. The cause for alarm came later. He was coming down a pass when his mind summoned up an entire group of orcs. Maeglin scrabbled around for something, anything, to use as a weapon. The rock in his hand kicked up dust when it hit the ground again. There no were orcs anywhere.

Certain that he was half mad, Maeglin stumbled through the mountains, barely trusting his eyes to tell him where to go. If he could invent groups of orcs that disappeared like smoke when he approached them, he couldn’t trust himself. Alone with only his thoughts, he began to spiral.

What would they think of him in Gondolin? Would they notice it? Would they cast him out, as was the tradition in most cities? No, surely not. Turgon didn’t allow anyone to leave. If he couldn’t hide it — if something went wrong — would they cast him over Caragdûr? Would that be how he died?

His father had said that they may die the same death. It had weighed on Maeglin’s mind for years. He’d been told time and time again that he should pay it no mind, but the people of Gondolin didn’t know his father. They didn’t know how right he could be.   


  
* * * * *

  
Between Thangorodrim and the Encircling Hills was nothing more than barren plains. Maeglin crossed as quickly as he could as he tried not to think of the last time he had been there. At least the hallucinations had stopped since he’d left the mountains behind. He’d mostly stopped dreaming, too. Only occasionally would muddled memories pass through his mind. He was, however, consistently a hair’s breadth from passing out from sheer exhaustion.

“I’ll be safe back in Gondolin,” Maeglin told himself, because if that wasn’t true, what was there to keep him moving?

After he’d crossed the Fen of Serech, Maeglin started crying. He was not even in the mountains yet, but even marshy land felt like stone walls between him and Morgoth. When he slept that night, he dreamed of his mother. Not injured or dying as she so often was, but smiling at him. That smile was the sum of all the best things in the world, Maeglin decided. He’d missed it.

“Lómion,” she’d said to him, “my sweet, sweet Lómion. I’ll be with you soon.”

When he woke, he wished it was true.

Maeglin ascended into the Encircling Hills as the sun dipped down into the west. The sky was a whorl of colours above his head, and he laughed to see them. He hadn’t even been away for too long. No one in Gondolin would have noticed anything suspicious. He was safe. His father was wrong.

Watching the moon rise from the security of a mountain cave was almost a magical thing. Maeglin’s soft breaths rose and dispersed like little clouds. When he slept that night, Maeglin felt certain that he would dream of his mother.

The sky was full of smoke instead.

 

* * * * *

 

The sky was full of smoke. Gondolin was falling to ruin. The whole world was still and silent, as though a moment of time had been captured and presented to him. Maeglin didn’t know why.

He looked down at himself. In this dream, he was dressed in armour and holding a sword, both covered in blood. Who was he fighting? What was happening to Gondolin? Maeglin looked around, confused, trying to make sense of it. He couldn’t move. The dream had trapped him, forced him to merely wait and watch his whole world burn.

Then everything began to move and the nightmare was complete. Idril and her son Eärendil were disappearing into the dark. Ecthelion was fighting against a Balrog. Turgon was gathering his soldiers in the Square of the King. People were dying. They were supposed to be safe here. Morgoth wasn’t supposed to find them.

It was only then that he realised where he was now standing. The black cliff of Caragdûr had haunted many of his nightmares. Maeglin had had many strange dreams of death, but this was the lasting one. He looked up to see his mother, dressed in white, reaching out to him.

“Lómion!” she called out in a panicked voice, “My sweet Lómion, come here.”

Maeglin reached out towards her, and she smiled at him. What he wouldn’t give to see that smile again. Just before he could put his hand in hers — just before she could pull him close again — he felt fingers digging into his shoulder. His mother’s face transformed into one of fear. Maeglin turned his head to see.

Eöl looked straight back at him.

“I did warn you. Now look to your mother, Maeglin, but don’t worry. You’ll be with her soon.”

Then they were falling down, down, down, into a never-ending abyss.

 

* * * * *

 

Maeglin woke with a start, his heart hammering in his chest. Gondolin and his mother and his father and all that smoke. The details of the dream were out of his grasp before he knew what to make of them. He knew to be afraid though. That was clear enough.

He looked around, more due to instinct than anything else. He saw, he thought he saw, a glimpse of orcish armour. Not here though, surely. Gondolin was safe. Morgoth didn’t know where they were. Just a trick of the light then. Just his tired mind.

Maeglin, certain of safety, carried on up the mountains to Gondolin.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hoped you enjoyed this! Please leave a comment if you did.


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